You may get a better response if you re-post your PTLE Video question in the Audio/Video Forum!

Matrox makes some really nice cards for DAW's with external monitoring for video.

I've always used the standard size QT movie window with the CTRL+9 shortcut, but I believe you can resize it if you use Quicktime Pro with Pro Tools.

As far as drives... If you are recording onto the drive, Firewire is better. If you are just transferring data, there is only a small difference between USB 2 and Firewire 400. Firewire 800 is much better than USB but not supported by all gear yet.

I don't know for sure, but I don't think PTLE is running okay with Firewire 800. I think it reverts back to 400 speed for stability.

I don't really recommend recording to external drives (unless all you have is a laptop with slow internal drives). I have a second internal hard drive on my computer that I record everything to.

Recording to the same drive that your recording software is on is not recommended.

I move the project off the second drive to an external USB drive during a daily automatic back-up. If I need to work on it some more, I bring the project folder back onto the second drive.

Finally, the project folder goes to CD or DVD for archive if the project is finished.

Good luck! 8-)